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And she can handle a gun... She, naturally, is our heroine, the intrepid Crimean War veteran and LiteraTec Thursday Next, and people who have read a lot of books are likely to find her cross-genre adventures highly entertaining. Welcome back to the Reader’s Den for week 2 of our discussion of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, the first book in the whimsical Thursday Next series and a selection on NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, selected by listeners in 2011. (Back to week 1.)

Here in the Reader's Den, what we really want to know is what you think about the books we're reading, so feel free to post comments whenever you like, and in the meantime, here are a few snippets from the critics:

“This is a highly entertaining mystery with social satire, time travel, fantasy, science fiction, and romance thrown in to the well-written mix.” —School Library Journal, December 2002

"Fforde delivers almost every sentence with a sly wink, and he’s got an easy way with wordplay, trivia and inside jokes. The Eyre Affair can be too clever by half, and fiction like this is certainly an acquired taste, but Fforde’s verve is rarely less than infectious.” —New York Times, February 17, 2002

In a interview published in the New Statesman last year, Fforde shared that he begins writing a novel by giving himself a "narrative dare" to write his way out of. The Eyre Affair began with the challenge, "Create a world in which Jane Eyre can be kidnapped." How well do you think he succeeds in creating this world? One Thursday Next fan commented after last week's post that she particularly loved the "weird (but popular) reality TV programs" and the literary characters' journeys outside of their allotted texts. The porous border between the real world and the BookWorld is what sets up most of the fun (and much of the danger) in The Eyre Affair. What aspects of this parallel world do you notice and appreciate as you read? And what just strikes you as really funny?

Thanks for your comment, Joseph. Yes, I love the Richard III performance, too. Every Friday evening. I wish I could attend one! The Mrs. Danvers clones are always creepy, as one would expect them to be. One Mrs. Danvers in the fictional or real world is plenty. For readers who are just beginning with Thursday's adventures, you'll meet the clones in the third book, In the Well of Lost Plots.